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Everybody Dies
Everybody Dies is the 8th season and series finale of House, M.D.. It first aired on May 21, 2012. The episode was preceded by the hour-long retrospective, Swan Song. House is remarkably upbeat, even though it's probably the last day of his freedom. His treatment of a drug addict patient (guest star James LeGros) results in House examining his life, his future and his own personal demons. Yahoo TV chose this episode as one of its 12 Must-See Finales of the 2011-2012 television season. http://tv.yahoo.com/photos/12-must-see-finales-slideshow/house-photo-1336151368.html Recap House wakes up in the dark. He seems to be in an abandoned building. He sees a used syringe and a man lying unconscious nearby. He goes over to check him, but Kutner tells him not to bother because he’s already dead. House looks at him and reminds him he’s dead too. Kutner says the fire isn’t. House looks at the floorboards and sees a red glow beneath. Kutner says it might be a good idea to get up and head for the exit. However, House thinks he might be hallucinating, but can’t figure out why he would be hallucinating about Kutner. Kutner wants to talk about the dead man and asks House how he met him. We see House in the clinic with the man, who says he was in a traffic accident a month ago and he’s run out of medication for the pain he feels from his orbital fracture. House asks him to take off his shirt. When the patient reminds House that it’s his eye, not his chest, House tells him that if he had an eye injury from hitting a windshield, he would also have a chest injury from hitting the steering wheel. If he gives him painkillers without checking his heart function first, the painkillers could kill him. House sees the expected ring of burns around his collarbone. House has noted the patient’s chart shows he said he had an allergy to codeine. House has realized the burns are from falling asleep while smoking sitting up. He accuses the patient of being a drug seeker and tells him he hopes his next doctor is stupid. However, as the patient goes to storm out, House notices bruises on his abdomen. He tells the patient he might get some drugs after all. House brings the patient’s file to his team. They’re astounded he wants to start a new case, but Park is even more astounded that House ran tests himself. Taub wants to know how House can be in a good mood when Wilson is dying and House’s parole officer is on his way. House is back with Kutner, explaining how the patient probably had a perforated ulcer that needed surgery. Kutner wants to know why House ignored Taub’s question about why he was in a good mood. House says he had a plan. Kutner figured he did, but wants to know why he didn’t tell the team. He figures it’s because House knew the plan wouldn’t work. House goes to see Foreman and says he’s about to take on eight new cases. Foreman is trying to fix a rickety table and doesn’t want to deal with House. House asks Foreman to tell the parole board that he needs House to stay around until he can save the patients. However, Foreman has no intention of lying to the parole board. House tells Foreman that he didn’t mean to flood the hospital - it was just a prank gone wrong. Foreman says that he’s lucky he’s only having to go to jail for six months instead of the usual year or two. House says he will go to jail eventually, but he doesn’t want Wilson to pay the price. Foreman agrees, but says House has to take all the pending cases. House sees Kutner again and realizes that Kutner knows everything he knows. He confronts Kutner with this, but Kutner just wants to know why he asked Foreman to “be a friend” about lying to the parole board. He thinks House knew he would need a friend when the plan didn’t work. He also wants to know why House isn’t trying to leave the burning building. He figures House is trying to commit suicide, which explains why he’s hallucinating about Kutner. Wilson is passing off cases to another doctor. Foreman comes in to look for House, but Wilson doesn’t know or care where he is. However, Wilson figures something is up and follows Foreman into the hall. Foreman says no-one’s seen or heard from House since two nights ago. Wilson says House is probably having a good time. Foreman reminds Wilson the last time House was going to jail, he was probably hoping that Wilson would be waiting for him. Wilson asks if Foreman’s concerned House is going to do (or has already done) something stupid. Foreman is afraid that “stupid” is the best they can hope for. House confronts Kutner about not even letting him get stoned in peace. He reminds Kutner he’s about to lose his job, his best friend and his freedom. Kutner tells him he’s being evasive even with his own subconscious and reminds him that death isn’t interesting. He figures House doesn’t find life interesting anymore either. Suddenly, it’s not Kutner, but Amber telling him to stop being a pathetic idiot. House wants Kutner back. Amber asks about the patient. When House wants to know why she wants to know, she reminds him that he’s the one obsessing about the case in the middle of a burning building. House tells her the patient went code blue. Back at the hospital, the patient appears to have a clot in his lungs and Adams wants to take him to an operating room. However, Park doesn’t think there’s enough time and wants to try to remove the clot right away. House starts looking through medical supplies while Taub asks him to make a decision. House administers a drug to the intravenous line. While Adams asks what he gave the patient, House starts counting down. Suddenly, the patient sits bolt upright in bed. His vital signs return to normal and he starts struggling with the team, who have to restrain him. House explains he gave the patient naloxone. It appears one of his visitors smuggled in heroin and he was suffering from an overdose. The patient shouts he’s not going to stop doing drugs because it’s reality that sucks. Amber starts to laugh. She realizes the patient wouldn’t have been lucid enough on naloxone to say what House says he did. Amber realizes House talked to the patient later, which is when he said those things. Amber knows House never talks to patients unless he’s trying to diagnose them and wants to know why House spoke to this patient. House is sitting in the room with the patient. He asks him how he’s feeling. The patient says he’s not going to stop using drugs. House has found out the patient used to be a married stockbroker, and grew up in a good home. The patient says he was still miserable. House says he’s just rationalizing screwing it up. The patient admits screwing things up, but says he’s not miserable anymore. He says he got hooked when he had a skiing injury and switched from prescription painkillers to heroin. He says it made him feel like God had gone inside him and eliminated the pain of him and everyone else. House reminds him that he lost everything. The patient says everything wasn’t enough and it was reality that sucked. Amber wants to know if House thought the patient was a good role model. House says he was happy. Amber reminds House he’s dead. Amber wants to know why House even listened to the patient. House is still in the patient’s room when Foreman comes in, furious that House has reassigned all the cases he promised to take. House says the other cases weren’t interesting. Foreman reminds him that they were the excuse for the parole board. House tells him to think of something else. Foreman realizes he’s been set up and asks House why he’s risking destroying himself. House says there is no risk - he knows Foreman will lie. Foreman tells House he won’t and leaves. Back at the burning building, House says the patient is happy. Amber replies that the patient is dead. Amber states House wasn’t worried about going back to jail. House says he was, since his initial plan had failed. Amber says that she knows the plan's failure, Wilson, and jail didn’t matter - only the puzzle did. House admits he was intrigued by a twitch in the patient’s thenar eminence. House tells the patient he’s dying. He has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and it’s progressing quickly. However, House then notices the patient’s body isn’t symmetrical. Amber highlights a gap in the story and wants to know what happened. House says the patient was just saying he was going to live life the best he could in the time he had left. Amber doesn’t believe him. House finally noticed there was a bulge on the right side of the patient’s neck. He goes to get the ultrasound machine. He examines him and tells him it’s good news. The team operates to remove a small branch. The patient probably inhaled it while outside. Most people would have coughed it up, but the cough reflex in addicts is suppressed. It set off an autoimmune reaction that mimicked ALS. Amber notices House is smiling. House says he’s stopped because a momentary triumph doesn’t make up for a friend dying. Amber tells him it does - House will cry over Wilson for a while and go back to work because he loves it. House says that despite that, in seventy years all of his patients will be dead too. Amber reminds him that when he solves a puzzle, it makes the world make sense, and there will always be more puzzles. They make him happy. She tells him to go home. House gets up off the floor, gets his cane, and heads for the door. However, the exit is blocked by fire. Wilson and Foreman are at 221B Baker Street. Wilson is worried because House has left food out for several days, which he never does. Foreman notes that House’s suitcases are still there. Wilson is worried that they screwed up, but Foreman assures him they have done the right thing. Suddenly, they hear House’s phone. Foreman answers it. It’s House’s regular prostitute, complaining he stood her up and asking for money. Wilson goes through the outgoing calls - one to the prostitute, one to Wilson which he didn’t answer, one for Chinese food, and four calls to an unknown number. Back at the burning building, House is looking for a way out. The floor gives out under him and he falls through it to the burning floor below. Wilson and Foreman break into one of Darryl Nolan’s group therapy session - he’s the one House called. Nolan reminds them anything he could say would be a breach of confidentiality. Foreman replies that it doesn’t apply if House is a danger to himself or others. Nolan excuses himself. Foreman tells Nolan that House left without taking anything, even his phone. Wilson realizes from Nolan’s hesitation that House didn’t mention anything about suicide, but there is something relevant. Nolan says that suicide isn’t the only road to oblivion. Foreman notes that House would have used Vicodin, but suddenly remembers his last patient was a heroin addict. Nolan asks if they’re done. Wilson realizes they have to check the hospital files for the patient‘s address. Stacy is now House's hallucination and she asks why he’s staying when he was about to leave. House realizes she’s asking if House now believes in God. She says falling through the floor may have been a sign. However, House insists he doesn’t believe in God at all. She says she knows he believes in love. House is asking Wilson to take the fall for the flooding. Wilson asks if House remembers that he’s dying. House figures that the court will never send Wilson to jail. Wilson says it will never work - there’s too much evidence it was House. He’s also afraid he will go to jail or spend most of the rest of his life in court hearings. Wilson is also worried about his reputation. However, House reminds him that if Wilson lets him go to jail, they won’t be able to spend any more time together. Wilson finally agrees and House thanks him. However, as House starts to leave, Wilson stops him and says he’s not going to falsely confess. House says it’s their only option. Wilson reminds him that the reason it’s their only option is because House has backed himself into a corner with everyone else. House figures Wilson will cave and goes to leave, but Wilson runs after him and stops him. He reminds House that in six months, there will be no-one to bail him out of trouble and if he does it now, House won’t learn to put limits on his own behavior. Wilson finally turns him down. Stacy tells House Wilson was right. He’s never had to develop a conscience of his own with Wilson around. House says he’s not just going to spontaneously develop a conscience. Stacy tells him he’s wrong and that Wilson’s death will be good for him - he will be able to find things within himself. House stands up again. He hallucinates that Stacy is handing him their child. House says this is merely what his life could have been, but Stacy tells him his life can still be like that. He reminds her she’s married and Cuddy is gone. Stacy counters they’re not the only two women in the world who could love him. She motions him towards the couch where he and Dominika are sitting. House then raises the stakes and sees himself surrounded by a group of cheerleaders. He sits back down again. Stacy urges him to get up and insists that he doesn’t have to die. House sees another figure around him and asks if hell is a series of people telling him to live. Cameron wonders why he thinks she’s there to convince him to live. House says he didn’t think Cameron hated him. She says she doesn’t, she loves him. He asks why she thinks he deserves to die. Cameron says it’s not a punishment, it’s a reward. She feels he’s suffered and given enough and deserves a chance to just give up, like Wilson did. Wilson and Foreman arrive at the patient’s address - an unused lot. Wilson thinks he smells smoke. They run and see a building on fire. Cameron is urging House to let go. House is saying he had a choice to avoid this. Cameron says he’s had a lot of chances to avoid things. He goes back to the conversation with the patient and admits he skipped a part. After the patient was told he would die quickly, he asked for an opportunity to take the fall for House’s prank. House said the patient doesn’t owe him anything. The patient countered that House tried to save him. House said he failed. The patient wants to know why House is trying to talk him out of it. The patient even has a plan - they will falsify the records to say the patient came in before the flood, House treated him badly, and he stole the tickets and flushed them. House agrees and thanks the patient. He asks the patient if he’s doing it because he’s dying. The patient says it’s because he has nothing left to lose. House says it’s ironic that the patient is now more willing to help someone than he ever was during the time he didn’t think he was going to die. He also thinks it’s ironic that things are going to work out better because he didn’t save the patient. He then realizes the patient’s true condition and wonders why he’s about to tell him. Cameron wonders what the point is - that House cared more about the patient than about himself? She knows the truth is that he cared more about the puzzle than about himself. Cameron says he’s afraid of the decision whether he should live or die and wants it to be in the hands of fate so he doesn’t have to make it. She says he’s taking the cowardly way out and he’s too cowardly to even admit it. House admits it, but says he can change. He stands up again. He starts walking. Foreman and Wilson see House in the building just as the ceiling crashes down. The building then explodes. Wilson looks for House, but can’t see him. The next morning, the entire team is at the site of the smouldering ruins. Adams hopes that House could have gotten out. Park is still optimistic: some people are found even in collapsed buildings. Taub sees the firemen are removing a body. Back at the hospital, the tests conclude that the body was House’s. Park tells at the memorial service that House hired her when no-one else would. Adams tells how House got her fired. Masters tells the audience how House gave her the courage to quit. His mother tells them House was a good son. Stacy tells them that he was a trying boyfriend, but she never stopped loving him. Dominika says he was her husband and she couldn’t help but love him. Foreman says that House was his boss and his employee, and he always learned from him. Taub says that House made him a better parent. Thirteen tells them that House was willing to kill her, and she will always be grateful. Chase says he wasn’t easy to deal with. Cameron says that somewhere inside him, he knew how to love. Wilson says that House was his friend. He saved lives, but he was an ass. The audience is astounded. Wilson goes on, saying House mocked everyone - patients, co-workers and his dwindling pool of friends or anyone who didn’t live up to his insane ideal of integrity. He says House sought the truth, but the truth was he was a bitter jerk who enjoyed making people miserable. He died selfishly, numbed by narcotics, without a thought for anyone else. He betrayed everyone who cared for him. Suddenly, someone’s cell phone goes off. Wilson asks whoever it is to take care of it. He tries to talk again about how he was there for House a million times but House was never there the one time he needed him, but the phone rings again. Wilson finally realizes it’s his phone and apologizes. He swears he turned it off. He pulls it out of his pocket and realizes it isn’t his phone. There is a text: “SHUT UP YOU IDIOT” Wilson falls silent. The scene changes to Wilson pulling up in a car. He sees House sitting on a nearby stoop. As Wilson drags to him in awe, House says that he managed to get out the back of the building, and then he switched out his own dental records for the patient’s. Wilson tells him he is destroying his entire life; he can never go back. If he does, he will go to jail for years and can never be a doctor again. In response, House says that he is dead and asks Wilson how he wants to spend his last five months. Wilson laughs. Chase takes over as the head of diagnostic medicine with Adams and Park working as his fellows; his name is now on House‘s old office door. Taub manages to get along with both Rachel and Ruby so he can spend more time with his daughters. Cameron goes back to work as the head of the emergency room in Chicago. She gazes at a picture of the old team before she runs over to her husband and child. Foreman goes back to work as Dean of Medicine. He notices his previously shaky table is steady. He looks down to find House’s hospital pass leveling the short leg. He muses for a moment and then starts smiling; he knows that House is still alive. House and Wilson are on separate motorcycles. Wilson starts to talk about what House should do when the cancer gets worse, but House ignores cancer as boredom. Finally, they ride down a rural road to a reprise of “It’s Later Than You Think”. Major Events *House tries to get Foreman to lie for him so he won’t have to go to jail, but instead dumps all of his cases on other doctors so Foreman refuses. *House tries to get Wilson to lie for him so he won’t go to jail, but Wilson refuses. *After treating a heroin addict, House meets up with the man to use heroin. *House almost gets trapped in a burning building as he hallucinates about Kutner, Amber, Stacy and Cameron. *House fakes his own death so he can be with Wilson during Wilson’s last five months. *Chase returns to the hospital to become head of diagnostic medicine working with Adams and Park. Zebra Factor 9/10 As House noted, in most cases someone inhaling a large piece of wood will cough it out. As such, it’s very rare for someone to have a small branch lodged in the airways in any event. Trivia & Cultural References *Dead Poets Society was a 1989 film about an inspiring teacher at a prep school. Kurtwood Smith and Robert Sean Leonard played father and son in the film. *Pascal’s Wager is a philosophical argument in favor of a belief in God, saying that that given the near infinite payoff of a belief in the afterlife versus the neutral result of eternal nothingness, it is worth believing in God just in case. *Sherlock Holmes also dies in The Final Problem, but it is eventually revealed in The Adventure of the Empty House that he faked his own death. The British series Sherlock also used this plot device in the last episode of the second series. *Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think) is also featured in the Season 5 episode Under My Skin. The version at end of this episode is by Louis Prima and Keely Smith. *The television show that House is watching is the episode of General Hospital that aired on March 29, 2012. *The episode also features "Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile" by Warren Zevon. *There has been discussion on how the last scene was filmed. It starts as a close up with the camera zooming out to a long distance show the characters driving away on their motorcyle. As a rule, zoom-in shots taken from a distance tend to be jittery, and there is some sign of shaking during the close up shots, but it appears a stable platform like a crane could not have zoomed out that far. *Entertainment Weekly rated House's faking his own death as their third "Single Most Clever Twist" in their 2012 TV Season Finale Awards. Cast *Hugh Laurie as Gregory House *Omar Epps as Eric Foreman *Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson *Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase *Peter Jacobson as Chris Taub *Odette Annable as Jessica Adams *Charlyne Yi as Chi Park *Olivia Wilde as Remy Hadley *James LeGros as Oliver *Karolina Wydra as Dominika Petrova House *Jennifer Crystal Foley as Rachel Taub *Zena Grey as Ruby *Diane Baker as Blythe House *Andre Braugher as Darryl Nolan *Anne Dudek as Amber hallucination *Jennifer Morrison as Allison Cameron *Kal Penn as Kutner hallucination *Amber Tamblyn as Martha M. Masters *Sela Ward as Stacy Warner *Patrick Price as Jeffrey Sparkman *Jaclyn Jonet as Amy *Patrick O'Connor as Dr. Frankel *Patrick Quinlan as Patient One *Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse *Elan Goldstein as Ph.D. Student Quotes Reviews Reviews for the episode were decidedly mixed. For example, TV Fanatic's critic gave it an astounding 4.8 out of 5, but the Onion's AV Club gave it a pathetic D+. *IMDB users rated this episode an 8.9, with 86% of voters giving it an 8 or better, and 61.7% rating it a 10. International airdates In Other Languages French - ''Tout le monde muert ''("Everyone dies", or literally "All the world dies") Links *Episode page at IMDB *Episode article at Wikipedia *Episode review at Blog Critics *Episode review at We Got This Covered *Episode review at International Business Times *Episode transcript at Clinic Duty *Episode Review at The Examiner *Episode page at House MD Guide *Episode review at TV Equals *Episode review at Polite Dissent *A list of the music on the show at Tunefind *Episode recap at TV Line ES:Everybody Dies Category:Episodes Category:Season 8